Young People's Weekend Away in Arbroath

(We are grateful to Mr Neil Smith of the Inverness Congregation for providing the material for this report.)

The October Youth Weekend Away in Arbroath took place from the 16th-19th October. The speaker was Rev William Macleod, Knightswood, who had spoken previously, in February 2009. The talks were entitled Repentance and Mercy in a World of Sin and Suffering.

Refreshed and recuperated from our travels after a good dinner, the first talk began. Speaking on The Problem of Pain, Mr Macleod stated that though God was all-powerful and loving, yet sin existed because of man’s disobedience. Sin reigns in all its ugly colours, of disease, pain, depression and eventually eternal death. Hence the absolute necessity of repentance unto life, which was explained in the second talk on Saturday morning.

As usual, we had a group discussion time after the second talk, and for perhaps the first time ever, the groups managed get through every question. That evening, the wonderful cross of Christ was preached as the only way of God showing mercy and giving peace to sinners who deserved his just wrath.

On the Sabbath, the two services continued the theme, with the morning service dealing with Ongoing Repentance, that being the repentance which everyone must continue in after coming to faith. As Paul clearly says in Romans 7, the Lord’s people will be conscious of still committing sin, and will be grieved by it. God chastises his children and will not allow them to continue in sin. Repentance is sadly a daily task, because sin is a daily occurrence.

We had a delightful lunch, or rather a feast for dinner in the early afternoon. In the evening a most solemn sermon was preached on the parable of the ten virgins from Matthew 25:12-13, entitled Too Late for Repentance.

Question time was one of the most interesting points of the weekend, where several intriguing questions were put to Mr Macleod, and answered in a very clear and Biblical way.

We give thanks to the Lord for his goodness and kindness during the weekend, and for keeping us safe as we travelled. The weather was calm and favourable. We thank all who came, and particularly Mr Macleod for being such a great speaker; Mrs Macleod and Macinnes from Snizort who were our fantastic cooks again, and of course Nathan Roberts, who was as ever a most capable organiser. We also thank everyone who prayed for the weekend, and those who supplied baking.